DeSantis rules out RFK Jr. as VP, but open to FDA or CDC role

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ruled out the prospect of a uni-party ticket with longshot presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — but said the Democrat could serve in his administration.

Citing some of their stark political differences, DeSantis mused that the Kennedy scion may be better suited for a post in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention or Food and Drug Administration.

“I’m aligned with him on Fauci and the corruption in the health bureaucracies 100%,” DeSantis told OutKick host Clay Travis in an interview that streamed Wednesday.

“But at the end of the day, he’s more liberal … he used to say — and I don’t know if he still believes this — that if you deny climate change, you should go to jail. Things like that.”

As DeSantis mentioned, the 69-year-old Democrat once penned an article titled “Jailing Climate Deniers” for EcoWatch. The post no longer appears to be live online but was captured by the WayBackMachine.

“Do I think the Koch brothers should be prosecuted for reckless endangerment? Absolutely. That’s a criminal offense and they ought to be serving time for it,” Kennedy said during an interview at the 2014 People’s Climate March.

Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and activist, has since made freedom of speech a core tenet of his 2024 campaign, decrying the censorship that skeptics of vaccines such as himself have endured on social media.

DeSantis also pointed to Kennedy’s opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision to nix affirmative action practices in colleges and universities.

“The effects of racist policies going back centuries are now self-perpetuating,” Kennedy tweeted last month.

“Affirmative action understands this and uses race-based policies to undo the effects of racist policies.”

“There’s a whole host of other things that he’d probably be out of step with,” DeSantis continued. “If you’re president, sic him on the FDA if he’d be willing to serve or sic him on CDC, but in terms of being veep, there’s 70% of the issues that he may be averse to our base on.”

The son of political icon Robert F. Kennedy has become something of a darling among conservatives, who are fond of his skepticism of health bureaucrats and attacks on the Democratic establishment.

He is currently trailing behind incumbent President Biden by a whopping 14.3% to 66% in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of Democratic primary polling.

Numerous Kennedy dynasty family members such as Jack Schlossberg, his cousin and the grandson of President John F. Kennedy, have disavowed his positions on a crop of issues.

DeSantis isn’t the only one to muse about tapping the Kennedy for a key post.

After the 2016 election, then-President elect Donald Trump considered Kennedy for a vaccine safety commission that ultimately never came to fruition.